Do You Know Where Honey Comes From?
by Hayal Kurmak
Summary: Kagura is sick. Is she trying to play another death-trick on her friends? They haven't even finished paying off the last funeral!


Written for prompt "Dying" for OkiKagu month. I don't own Gintama.

* * *

She _really_ was not kidding around this time.

But of course, nobody believed her.

"I'm dying."

Gin and Shinpachi scoffed at her. "Yeah yeah, we're still paying off the expenses for your last funeral," said Gin.

"At least wait until we have a little money," agreed Shinpachi. "Not that we ever have any."

Neither seemed to recall that a certain sadistic Shinsengumi officer paid for half of the ceremony. After all, the tanning bed and conveyer belt were his ideas.

"If I could chose when to die it would be long after your deaths, uh-huh!" she exclaimed vehemently.

Gin stuck a jar of honey in her face. "Now now Kagura, bee a good girl and eat your honey."

Not willing and really too tired to argue with her lazy surrogate father, Kagura took the jar and started to head downstairs to Otose's bar.

As she was about to close the door, Gin called out, "If you really aren't feeling well, then you should probably tell your…" he trailed off, coughed, prepared himself in a defensive position, and finished in an unhappy tone, "… husband."

Kagura tore the door off and threw it at him. His attempt at defenses did not do him any good.

With a groan of pain and her hand holding her waist across her stomach, Kagura stormed down the stairs.

* * *

"He probably shouldn't have forced her to marry him," Otose mused to her cat-thief employee. "She's always here and he's too often having to break in upstairs if she doesn't come out in the town."

"It's costing a fortune too," said Catherine, taking a swing from a bottle, which was promptly swept away by the old landlady. "For the past two years he's been blowing things up with that bazooka of his."

"I'm telling you, this whole thing doesn't really make sense – she really just wants to stay with Gin. What does he see in that monster anyway? I mean once she reached seventeen she was really pretty, but their relationship, to some extent, started before then," Otose said as she served one of her customers.

"Gossiping ladies will find themselves floating with the bees of Never Ever Land in space!" sang a voice, interrupting the ladies' conversation.

Otose turned toward the sound and gave an unamused look. "Why won't you go on home? That lazy tenant of mine isn't covering the costs for the destruction going on there," she said, not bothering to hide her irritation or curiosity.

"Besides, Never Ever Land doesn't have bees," nodded Catherine. "It only has wasps, and they don't make honey."

Kagura shot her a glare. "Oh yeah? Wanna bet? I bet you thirty-four kilograms of sunboku that they do too have bees!"

"What kind of bet is that? Nobody wants that crap but you!"

"You're all just jealous that I can eat and eat and not gain any weight, uh-huh!" Kagura said with her head tilted.

Catherine crossed her arms. "Oh yeah? At least we're not man-eating monsters like you!"

"Yeah? Who you callin' a lobster? Is it my hair?"

Before Catherine could retort with how ridiculous the girl was for getting "lobster" out of "monster", Kagura suddenly bent over and clutched her stomach.

"Ugh…" she moaned. "I wish they'd believe me…"

Otose put on her motherly side and motioned for Tama to make hot tea. "What's wrong? Got a cold? Autumn is a cool season, after all. We'll put some honey in your tea."

"Just make it from Never Ever Land, mhm," Kagura muttered.

"… sure." Otose sat down across from the young girl. "Mind tell this old lady what's bothering you that that good-for-nothing curly haired man and Shinpachi won't listen to?"

A ray of hope crossed Kagura's face and she stared up at Otose. "Really? You'll listen, yes?"

"Of course, that's what this place is for."

"Great! Then I'm dying!" Kagura said happily, thankful someone would finally understand.

"…"

"You already played that trick," Catherine said from behind Otose. Tama brought a cup of tea and a bear-shaped jar of honey that with a sticker that said, "100% Never Ever Land Organic."

Otose waved her hand to dismiss the cat-lady. "Now now, what makes you think you're dying this time?"

Kagura poured the honey in the tea, and kept pouring it until Otose calmly took it away from her. It was half gone.

"I guess there really are bees in Never Ever Land in space," mused Catherine.

"Told you," Kagura said as she stirred the cup. "Don't judge a dying lady, yup."

"You ain't dying!"

The old lady pushed Catherine to the side and asked her to tend to the customers. "Okay, now tell me what's really bothering you, Kagura-chan."

With one last glare at the former thief, Kagura sighed and turned to Otose. "Well, I get sick in my stomach, and it's queasy, uh-huh, and I want to eat sunboku at one moment, and sunboku another, and then later I want more sunboku, and then between all the sunboku I want eggs over fried rice –"

"How's that any different than usual?!" interrupted Otose.

"… and I want it all covered in Never Ever Land honey," finished Kagura.

"What's with Never Ever Land honey anyway?"

"It has sunboku juice in it."

"… how's this any different than usual, again," Otose asked with her hand to her face.

Kagura finished her tea and pushed it toward the other side. "Well I also keep throwing up, especially after I wake up in the afternoon or when I'm trying to sleep at night, and the craving for food of all kind is even stronger, yes."

Otose's eyes widened with a thought. "Kagura-chan… when did you last have your period?"

"Eh?" Kagura gave her a strange look. "What about an exclamation mark?"

"… that's not what I said," Otose said with an annoyed sigh. "I mean, does your race have monthly bleeding times, you know, where you bleed from down there?"

The girl thought for a moment and then brightened, "Oh yes! Aneue told me about that, where the birds and the bees together and share in the Never Ever Land honey and then make music albums."

Before Otose could lose her cool, Tama, who was within earshot, walked over and said, "Have you done lots of *** and #$% and #$ and ** #$ with Okita-sama? And have you had any blood come from your $#%^& and have you had to use #$^ when you did #$%^ and #$^ with him?"

All the men and the two older women in the store stared at the robot in shock. Kagura looked at her with a deadpan expression, as if such words were normal in her hearing.

"Hey, I don't want to lose my customers…"

"Did she get to do all that before I did?"

"I kinda wanna know more about what such a pretty girl can do... ouch!" yelled one of the men as Otose hit him.

"That sadistic policeman has ears that can hear hundreds of meters away," she hissed. "You don't know – "

Before she could even finish her warning, said policemen came marching in through the door, his face aflame.

"China! You haven't been out in town for days, and you haven't come home! I'm gonna kill Danna and tie you up, I have spiffy new custom-made cuffs just for you, and which one of you geezers is saying such nasty things about my wife?" he asked, eyes scouring the room. "She's an ugly little thing, you can't say things like that. Or anything for that matter. Oi, where's that monster anyway? Kagura-chaaaan," he mocked in a sing-song voice, "I got your Never Ever Land honey!"

When no one answered, he pulled out his bazooka and fired at random, tearing up the bar. Otose and her two employees tried to stop him, but to no avail.

"Kagura-chan, do something!"

They all glanced around, but she wasn't in plain sight. Actually, she had snuck behind the counter at sat on the floor when her crazy husband appeared, and found a whole stash of Never Ever Land honey, which she promptly began to stuff in her mouth.

Nearly three-fourths of the stuff was gone before Tama found her. "Um, I hate to ask you, but your husband has gone crazy and we'll have a lot of damage to pay now. Which means a lot of work for you."

Kagura rolled her eyes, patting her now-rounded honey tummy. "Ugh, I don't feel well, why do I have to deal with him? I just wanna stay with you and old ladies and Gin-chan and Shinpachi."

"Why did you marry him anyway?" the android asked as debris was flying over the counter above them.

"He forced me to," Kagura muttered, trying to wipe her sticky hands on Tama's broom. "He promised me he'd give me lots of food if I married him. I didn't realize it was a life-time commitment, because humans don't stick to those anyway, uh-huh. Besides," she said, smiling a little, "Papi did say love starts in bed, and I don't hate him much as I used to after the #$%#$% and ##$^ , yup."

"Somebody saveeeee usssss!" cried Catherine from somewhere in the bar.

Before Tama could answer, they were joined by another person who was sporting a very sadistic grin.

"There you are, dear wife. Let's go home before I decide to lock you up permanently."

Kagura sucked her teeth. "As if that would happen, uh-huh. There's no way you could lock me up."

Sougo scooted over very close to her face, and Tama backed off. "Yeah? No harm in trying? It's been a very rough week China, certain _needs_ of mine haven't been met and my poor subordinates have been suffering, and they're begging you to come back. You shouldn't leave your poor husband behind, you know." His expression grew darker. "And stay away from men at bars. I have enough trouble dealing with your daddy-complex."

"Who you saying has a fatty complex?!" she spat in his face.

"You! Now," he said, and crawled over her body, "please accommodate me," he kissed the skin right beside her ear, "there's honey here," his hand found her thigh, "I'm so desperate that I'm ready to do this _your _way…"

A bottle of glass broke over his head. Kagura looked up to see Otose glowering at both of them.

"I wouldn't do that Sougo."

"Eh? She's my wife –"

"First of all, you owe me a lot of money. Second, you ran all my customers away. Third, you're in a public place. And fourth," she took a big breath, "she's pregnant."

Silence.

Just as Sougo was about to reply, another object came flying at his head. Through the blood running down his face, the officer could see a white, curly-headed samurai standing above him.

"Is this why she's been moping around all week saying she's dying? Because she got knocked up by this stupid moron who robs taxes?" Gin said, his face twisted into an angry expression and his eyes full of rage.

"Danna, she _is_ my wife, but I totally didn't know – "

"What kind of husband are you?!" yelled Shinpachi, who was right behind Gin.

Kagura grinned and reached up to bite Sougo's neck. "A very poor one. Well, better than dying I guess, uh-huh. Wait until Papi finds out."

Gin's face suddenly switched to a look of horror. "Er… lemme handle this one, Kagura…"

"Kagura-chan, it is probably best not to do #$ #% or #$#$ with Okita-sama while you're pregnant," said Tama, waving her mop for emphasis, noticing how their hands were already feeling up on each other as everybody's attention was on Gin.

Again Gin was thrown into a fit of rage and he grabbed the front of the Shinsengumi's jacket. "Just _what_ are you doing with my daughter? Maybe I should call her Papi after all…"

Sougo smirked. "What? I just said she's my wife, and she likes doing #$% and #*^#, even I have a hard time – " a third hit on his head cut off his sentence, and he fell to the ground.

Kagura stood up and stretched. "Well now that I'm not dying, I'm going to go walk Sadaharu, uh-huh."

"Good, he's been stinking up the place," Shinpachi said.

"You're not going anywhere, China girl," Sougo called out weakly, "Even if we can't do #$% and #$%, I still have the Never Ever Land honey, and I just for once want you to come home and _stay_ there like a good girl –"

"Whatever, Sadist!" she laughed, her stomach pains forgotten for the moment. She ran out of the bar, singing happily, "Never Ever Land honey, don't forget me, take me home, ooooh that country hoonnneeey, made from butts and making me a hut.."

They all stared after her for a moment before looking down at the bleeding police officer, who was forcing himself to stand. "Danna, if she's pregnant, I'll need help taking care of her."

Gin patted him on the back, just hard enough to make him cough up more blood. "Of course. We're all here for her. We have to always clean up her mess anyway, even if this mess is completely your fault."

"I – whatever," Sougo said, too tired to argue. "There's a reason I married her, and believe it or not it was for legitimate reasons." He looked away, too embarrassed to put what he felt into words.

"Yeah yeah, we get it Souchiran-kun," said Gin.

"My name is Sougo."

"We know you're a sadist to cover up your insecurities," said Shinpachi. "Just like Gin-san."

"Hey!" the sadistic duo interjected.

"Anyway, Okita-sama," said Tama as she handed him a damp rag. "There's other things you can do with Kagura-chan while she's pregnant. Like $#$% and $%#$^, and then #$%#$^ and #$%#^. There's also…"

"Hahaha!" Gin laughed nervously. "Okay son, let's move on – "

But the damage had already been done. Sougo's eyes had widened and he seemed to gain new strength in his head and legs. Just as Gin was about to reach out, Sougo had bolted out of the heavily damaged bar with an excited and yet still sadistic grin, toward the direction Kagura had gone with her monstrous pet.

Everybody stared at Tama. Gin and Shinpachi had steam coming from their ears. Then they, too, chased after Sougo and Kagura.

Otose looked around at her destroyed bar and lifted her eyes to pray whatever god would help her. Tama and Catherine had started picking up pieces of splintered wood.

"By the way Tama, just where did you learn all of that stuff anyway? And…_ why_ did you learn it?"


End file.
